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Apple Dumplings

Steamed dumplings made with tart apples and a soft dough.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Apple Dumplings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Pare and quarter the apples.

  2. In a bowl, sift together baking powder and flour.

  3. Rub in the butter and salt, then add milk to form a soft dough.

Assemble and steam

  1. Roll out a thin crust to line a baking dish.

  2. Place the apples in the dish, add a little water, and cover with a crust half an inch thick.

  3. Steam for half an hour.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tart ripe apples
Provide the fruit filling that softens and flavours the dumplings as they steam.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the dough that encloses the apples.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking so the dough rises and becomes light.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add tenderness and richness to the crust.
Milk
Moistens the flour so it binds into a soft, workable dough.

The step that matters

Covering the apples with the crust. The crust must be sealed over the apples and kept at the stated thickness so steam is trapped and the dough cooks through rather than turning gummy or leaking its filling.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More apple dumplings recipes

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